


Until the last falling star

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Happy Beginning, Happy Ending, I should be sleeping, I'm Sorry, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF YOU COULD USE IT AS FABRIC SOFTENER, Stucky - Freeform, and bucky has both of his arms because I'm shit at writing otherwise, stucky au, stucky au where they return home from the war together, they finally break the miscommunication barrier, woooooooo!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4835390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war has ended and by some miracle they have came out the other side alive & together but that doesn't mean they've gotten any better at sharing their feelings. </p><p>{I'll keep on wishing<br/>Until the last falling star}</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the last falling star

_If there was a chance_  
_That we could be lovers_  
_I'd write you a book_  
_Of handwritten letters_  
_And burn them all up to the end_  
_Just to start over again_  
[[listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iTNU3xtDFA)]

The bar is crowded with too many bodies jostling together in passing and the air is filled with drunken hymns but Bucky notices nothing but the man beside of him who looks as if he ate Steve Rogers and spit him out whole. He's blonde hair parted to the side and the clearest blue eyes - two things that have remained the same despite glaring physical changes and all at once Bucky feels homesick. The war is over now and they've safely landed in Brooklyn but Steve is different.

Steve is leaning over the bar counter, mirroring his own body, and staring back at him like he's _everything._ Bucky orders shot after shot to erase the tingling feeling in his gut that all the cheap alcohol in the world couldn't wash away - he has tried before - age 15; watching Steve's lips curl around a cold glass of water in the stifling heat and all he could think about was how much he wanted to be that melting ice cube sliding down a slender throat. He'd stolen a bottle of his father's vodka and mixed it with Cola in hopes that he could go back to seeing Steve as nothing more than a buddy but some part of him knew that he'd never saw him in that way.

"Buck?"

Bucky startles - "Hmm?"

Steve grins, slow and soft - "I asked," he clears his throat and lowers his voice, "why you keep staring at me like I'm some creature from those movies we used to watch when we were kids. You know...the slimy kind that always made you cover your eyes?"

"You're not slimy," Bucky ignores the question and nods at the bartender as she pushes across another shot glass filled to the brim.

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

_Because I miss being able to cover your entire body with my own when we hugged and I hate the fucking war. It took too much away from us. I miss your stupid big blue eyes that had never saw another dead body; not even when your ma died. I can't stop thinking you'll run off and leave me and I hate that I'm so weak that I need you to stick around - not because I need emotional support but because for some ignorant reason, my heart refuses to forget about you._

Bucky shrugs - "I don't know what to tell you. Maybe I've had too much to drink, not sure."

He punctuates the point with a sip that burns in his stomach.

A tall wiry man with frayed graying hair and the stench of stale alcohol on sun weathered skin squeezes in next to Steve just long enough to order the cheapest pint that they offer - stumbles off as he hums a drunken tune under his breath.

"You keep drinking you're gonna turn into that guy," Steve jabs a finger in his direction and smirks.

"Nah. I'm not that tall," Bucky snarks.

Steve nudges Bucky's shoulder with his own and finishes off his own drink - he's only had two and due to the serum it no longer effects him.

Bucky thinks that it's unfortunate. He misses getting Steve tipsy and sitting on the fire escape of their Brooklyn apartment with their feet swinging over the edge and bodies squished together - Steve's foot catching against his own and swinging in harmony for a moment before he laughed and moved it back to his own side. Those nights had been few and far in between with money issues and Steve's health but he cherished every memory of them.

Steve remains stoic and keeps his head down - eyes trained on the bar counter as if it's the most important thing in the room. Bucky recalls a night too long ago when they'd gathered at a bar in Europe and he'd tried to drown his feelings even then but they'd slipped out in "You're gonna keep the outfit though, right?" and "You know...when you were shorter you coulda' wore them too. They woulda' looked jus' fine." as well as " 'member our little apartment back home and the tiny kitchen? Spent hours cleanin' up your scrapes and bruises 'cause you were...you're not now...a little guy and someone had to keep you safe."  Steve had read between the lines of course and had blushed more than once. Back then (and a year feels like an eternity these days) Bucky spent nearly everyday for at least a week crying over Steve; thinking he'd lost him for good this time because Peggy Carter seemed to have him wrapped around her pinky finger. It hadn't lasted but they still regarded one another fondly and wrote often. As it turned out she'd fallen for Gabe Jones and he was a good man - one of the best. 

"Y'ever think about Peggy?," he questions - the words tumbling out before he can call them back. 

"Sometimes, why?"

Bucky shrugs - "Wondering how Gabe is holding up is all."   _Liar. You'll forever consider her a threat._

"Got a letter from her last week; he asked her to marry him."

Steve's shoulders slump when he delivers the last bit and Bucky grits his teeth. Steve has been hurt by too many women in his lifetime.

"And?"

"Well she said yes."

Bucky nods and polishes off a shot. He shouldn't feel relieved but he is.

"Are you alright with that?," he asks. _Go on, break my heart again. Tell me you're madly in love with her and no one else could ever compare._

"Why wouldn't I be? Gabe's a good man," Steve replies as he sits up straight and traces a groove in the bar counter.

"Thought you loved her."  _In a way that you could never love me. Not like that._

"I did."

_Ouch._

Bucky clenches his jaw and curls both hands around the shot glass that's now empty.

"I think I always will but shes happy. That's what matters, right?," Steve gives him a smile - the kind that he can't fake. _He means it._

"Yeah."  _And I've got you for as long as you'll have me._

" 'sides I got you," Steve knocks his shoulder against Bucky's and grins.

_Don't say that if you don't mean it._

The liquor makes Bucky's eyes glassy and his lips loose - " 'till you find a nice dame."

Steve acts as if he has uttered the most hateful words - "What if I don't want that anymore?"

_Why wouldn't you? It's all you ever talked about before the war; finding the right partner and settling down._

"Sure you don't," Bucky scoffs.

Steve stiffens beside of him.

_Why are you getting mad at me for?_

"Come on Steve...that's all you've ever wanted and it's okay pal," Bucky pats Steve's arm through his thin jacket and Steve glares - shakes his hand off.

"I'm allowed to change my mind, you know."

Bucky cocks his head and grins because _there's the Steve Rogers I know. The little guy who never runs from a fight, even now though he avoids alley fights and takes on the world when it needs saving._

"Stop grinning at me like that," Steve spits out with anger in his voice. It only serves to make Bucky smile harder and for the first time since they returned home (3 months, two weeks not that he's counting or anything) he feels genuine happiness.

The war didn't strip Steve of his feisty attitude.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bucky laughs. He's beginning to feel the alcohol - warm like cinnamon in his veins.

"As I was saying...," Steve begins, "I'm allowed to change my mind and I did."

Bucky sobers and hunches over the bar, elbows resting near the edge as he stares at Steve who is giving him the same look he gave him in Europe even after Peggy left - after his snide remark about Peggy having a friend for him died down.

"Alright, calm down. Never said you couldn't but someday-," he begins and Steve cuts him off.

"Bucky...Buck. Stop, okay? We made it just fine for years without a dame, didn't we? Well... _I_ did at least." There's a note of bitterness in Steve's tone and Bucky feels a pang of regret for years of double dates that ended in utter failure simply because he couldn't bring himself to share Steve and deep down, he'd been petty. He'd purposely set Steve up with pretty girls that he might actually stand a chance with and then he'd casually mentioned how Steve couldn't dance and that was always a death blow to his date and by then it was too late for her to back out.

"Sorry," he means it. _Sorry for being an idiot and thinking I could keep you to myself for the rest of our lives and we'd grow old and gray in Brooklyn together._

Steve sighs.

"Bet you'll have 'um lined up for miles now," Bucky adds. _I'll put myself on the back burner if it means you'll be happy. I owe you that much._

"Maybe you can even find _me_ one," he laughs and it comes out hollow as he signals for another shot glass.

Steve does not reply. Instead he stares straight ahead with jaw clenched.

" 'course you don't _have_ to," Bucky continues as he claps Steve on the back in the same patronizing way Steve had did to him during the war and it had ached something awful.

"Sure Buck. I'll find you a date." 

Bucky recognizes the defeat in his tone - the lack of conviction.

"We can give double dating another try," Bucky replies with eyebrows raised - _Come on, buddy. What did I say that was so wrong?_

Steve nods and clamps right up - Bucky hates it when he's like this. At least when he's fighting back it means he has a reason to; a _want_ to. When he's quiet like this Bucky's mind wanders to bigger and darker things - to dim rooms and hot pokers against his skin, to a shorter man with glasses and hate in his eyes - to cold dirt and twigs under his back as he hunkered down in a trench and prayed to make it home alive. It brings tears to his eyes and he wonders if he'll ever be able to forget. 

They have always been in sync with one another and have always had the ability to feel when something is wrong with the other. It's no surprise when Steve turns toward Bucky and gently shakes his shoulder which causes Bucky to flinch. 

"Hey...Buck. We can do that, okay? It's fine." Steve knows that Bucky's sudden distance is not about double dating - knows even more how he hates discussing what happened to him and hes yet to share more than tidbits here and there and more than once hes cried on Steve's shoulder even as he tries to keep his chin up and act like nothing is the matter. Steve knows - he always does. 

"Hmm?"

"Dates - double dates," Steve reminds him. 

"Oh. Yeah, those." 

Bucky nods and clenches his fist around the bar counter. 

"How about we go home? It's getting late and cold," Steve urges. The cold no longer bothers him as much as it once does but it makes Bucky feel needed and it's just as well because he's very much needed and wanted. 

Bucky nods once more and silently drains his shot glass before slipping a few bills under it and following Steve past boisterous groups of people gathered around small tables with cigarettes and decks of cards. 

 

They do not live far from the bar and the brisk air is refreshing - it makes the heaviness in Bucky's chest lessen and he can breathe again. Steve knows him well - knows what will help him. They do not speak until they're safely behind closed doors and Steve makes a pot of coffee without asking. 

Bucky kicks off his boots next to Steve's and picks up his sketchbook. He had recently taken up drawing once more in an attempt to chase away the dark but only shadows and echos of war flowed from his pencil with puffs of gunpowder in the air and crimson red slashes across lifeless bodies - a trench full of men who he'd known well - who'd never made it home from the war. He misses the days of sketching his mothers potted plants, Steve's crooked teeth and the rusty red blood under Steve's fingernails - his triumphant smile as Bucky cleaned him up once more even as he'd lost the fight. _What matters,_ he'd said, _is that I never gave up._ Those words give Bucky more strength than Steve would ever know.

He forces himself to focus on the present - the smell of coffee in the kitchen, his boots piled on top of Steve's, an apple green afghan that graces the back of their couch (a gift from his mother), worn carpeting and one large bed in their living room because after being apart for too long they'd both craved the closeness that they once had.

He begins to sketch as he hears coffee cups rattling in the kitchen - he has nearly finished Steve's eyes when Steve rounds the corner and plops down next to him, sits the mugs on a small table next to them.

"Made you a cup of coffee and I added half a bag of grounds just how you take it," Steve says as he cranes his neck to see what Bucky is working on.

Bucky nods and colors Steve's eyes in shades of gray - wishes he could fill them in with ocean blue and moss green (the hue they take on in the shadows) but this will have to do. He's drunk enough that the lines aren't perfect but it's clearly _him_.

"Its been a long time since you drew me," remarks Steve as he curls his hands around his mug. He prefers what Bucky considers to be an obscene amount of sugar and milk in it - they've had many a spat over Bucky telling him - _"That's not how you drink coffee, Steve. That's how people who don't really like it take theirs."_ to which Steve would counter that it's better than coffee so black and bitter that it makes you cringe.

"Mmmhmm," Bucky continues to sketch - works on the other eye as Steve watches.

_It's comforting, this. Used to do it all the time before the war._

After five minutes of silence - though it's not uncomfortable - Steve reminds Bucky of his cooling coffee.

"I worked really hard on it and you're ignoring it," he lectures.

_You put water and grounds in a pot but okay._

Bucky groans and carefully closes the sketchbook - scoots it to the other side of the couch as Steve passes him a mug.

"It's cold," he complains.

Steve rolls his eyes - "That's because you let it get that way."

Bucky grunts in protest but drinks it none the less, reclines his head against the back of the couch after a moment and Steve joins him with his head on Bucky's shoulder. It isn't as easy as it had been when he was smaller but it's nice and if he closes his eyes tight enough he can pretend that everything is the same, with him eternally pining over Bucky and taking any opportunity to touch him - collecting each gentle embrace from when he was sick and storing them away to revisit when the flashbacks of war returned - that was something he'd taken back with him; bags and bags of regret and guilt for the men he couldn't save and the men whose lives he'd cut short. It was for a damn good reason and they'd won in the end but it certainly didn't keep him from not sleeping at night. For that matter, Bucky had similar issues and as a result they stayed up to greet the sun in the morning more often than not.

"Did you mean it?," Steve asks quietly - his voice feels like he might as well be yelling though it's low in the stillness of the apartment.

"Mean what?"

"The whole dating thing...you want me to find you a dame?"

_God no._

"If you want. I'm in no hurry."

Steve pulls away then and collects their mugs - drops them into the sink with a loud _clang_.

_What's wrong? Come back - I'm cold.  
_

"I'm not gonna run off if that's what you think," he mumbles to Steve's back - he's hiding out in the kitchen and Bucky's body feels too heavy to move.

"I know that."

_Then what's the problem? You trying to tell me you're gonna leave?_

"You can get a gal, Steve. I won't mind I promise. All I ask is that you let me know if you're gonna bring her home so I know when to get lost."

_If it makes you happy..._

"Dammit Bucky. I told you already that I don't want a dame, I don't want a gal or whatever term you want to use, I'm not interested in double dating but if you're hell bent on it then sure. Okay." 

Steve slams a cabinet door and Bucky jumps. 

_What the hell, Steve?_

He trudges to the kitchen to find Steve sitting at the tiny table they have breakfast at every morning, with his head in his hands and his forehead creased. Bucky pulls out a chair and decides to wait this one out.

"You coulda' said no," he mumbles.

Steve glares and there's pain in his eyes that Bucky hasn't saw before now. Come to think of it, Steve hadn't met his eyes much at all since the return home.

"How about this? You tell me what's on your mind and I'll listen," he offers.

Steve retreats to the counter and pours himself another cup of coffee - doesn't bother with sugar or milk before returning to his seat.

_Whatever this is it's bigger than the two of us._

"I can't," Steve mutters.

"You used to tell me everything...," Bucky trails off.

_And then the war turned our whole world upside down and you changed._

"Not everything."

_Okay._

"Then tell me now," Bucky encourages.

_If it's gonna hurt, rip it off like a Band-aid. Tell me you don't need dating 'cause you already found someone. Drive the knife in deep so I cough up blood.  
_

"It wouldn't matter," Steve sighs.

"Then it's no big deal," Bucky shrugs.

His head is coming into focus once more as the coffee makes its way through his system and yet Steve still isn't making sense.

Steve's ears turn bright red, cheeks pink & Bucky braces himself - _He's in love. When his ears get red like that it means he really likes the person. Lucky dame._

"What's her name?" 

_I can take it, tell me._

Steve laughs and shakes his head as if Bucky has uttered something ridiculous.

"You're a real jerk you know that?"

_Not exactly what I was expecting._

"So I've been told."  _By you and that's alright - it's our way of saying 'I care about you.'_

Steve is clearly struggling so Bucky reaches over and places his hand in Steve's - it's warm from the heat of the now abandoned mug.

_It's okay buddy. I'm here._

Steve says nothing as he turns Bucky's hand over until they're palm to palm and holds on tight.

_Butterflies. You give me butterflies._

Bucky doesn't want to sully the moment with words - he chooses to give Steve's hand a gentle squeeze instead.

_I love you. I hope you know that. I've loved you our whole lives and not like you'd love a brother. Maybe I'll even tell you someday, if I get drunk enough.  
_

"Buck...," Steve begins. He's staring at their hands as Bucky traces the palm of his hand with his thumb. 

Bucky glances up and it hits him all at once - Steve is staring at him as he has their entire lives; as he had that night at the bar ages ago...  _He's...in love. With ME._

"Oh God Steve...why didn't you say so? Jesus Christ I've been waiting and I thought..." he rambles as he tugs Steve to the couch and pulls him to his chest, holds him until he's sure Steve's ribs are aching. 

_I must be dreaming.  
_

"But...Peggy," he mumbles as he shifts and buries his head against Steve's neck - feels his pulse picking up.

"-was a different kind of love," Steve finishes.

_You.love. **me**._

He's tearing up and can't control it - hot tears slide down his cheeks and dampen Steve's neck. Steve clutches him tight and Bucky understands.

_We thought we'd never get this chance._

Steve is not good with verbalizing his feelings but Bucky needs to hear it so that he knows that this isn't a cruel dream.

"You loved her. You love...." he cannot bring himself to complete the sentence.

"You, stupid," Steve laughs and his voice breaks.

Bucky joins in and they're a sobbing mess of laughter and love gone unspoken for far too long.

_Let me kiss you once more only this time it won't be rushed - we were sixteen but I knew it then. I'd never love another the way that I love you, for as long as I live and I meant every word when I vowed my entire life to you because you already had it. You **are** it. _

Steve pulls back and his gaze catches on Bucky's lip - Bucky bites it on purpose knowing that it'll get Steve worked up or at least he hopes it will because his entire body feels like its been lit on fire.

It almost works.

Steve hesitates and Bucky can't wait a second longer. He wraps his hands around the side of Steve's neck and closes his eyes - allows himself to get lost in the taste of Steve's lips against his own. He kisses softly and lingers - lightly brushes his lips against Steve's as Steve threads his fingers through his hair. He makes a low moan in his throat that vibrates against Bucky's mouth and causes him to smile.

_It all comes back to this. To **you**. _

Steve parts his lips and licks Bucky's bottom one - Bucky moans and deepens the kiss; Steve tastes sweet on the tip of his tongue like the way he takes his coffee and Bucky can't get enough.

Steve pulls back after a series of desperate kisses and leans his forehead up against Bucky's - they're both breathing hard and in the moment the green afghan has fallen from its perch on the back of the couch and tangled around them.

_You are worth hell, worth nearly dying for._

"Does that answer your question?," Steve whispers, his breath coming out in hot puffs against Bucky's.

"Well I'm no dame but I guess I'll do," Bucky winks and Steve smirks.

"You've always been more than enough."

It's the closest to an _I love you_ that Bucky is going to get for now and he cherishes every word.

"You're with me then?," he questions as he strokes Steve's cheek.

" 'Till the end," Steve murmurs as he pushes Bucky back against the couch.

_It's you and me pal, till the end of the line. 'Til the last falling star._


End file.
